Okay. I understand. Thanks for the explanation, WaPo. He's rich and prominently sexy. He can't go into government without major flash and admiration. And some people were even going to pick at his credentials, maybe beat him up the way they did to poor little Tom. That won't do.

Good and successful men do not want to become the pinata for the benefit of the political exhibition in Washington unless they see a chance to make a difference. Like Daschle he served Obama's purpose of making a first impression that Obama planned to make carefully measured improvements in our health care delivery system. I suspect Gupta learned in the last two months that the Obama Gang plans a radical replacement of the existing system by government ownership of all the personel and resources. For Gupta that would be to destroy all of the private health care he has ever known and replace it with Unionized governmental employees. That was too horrible to contemplate for anyone who knows the truth that competency in Doctors/nurses is 100% more important than Governmental Control of everyone's lives.

He may have something to hide. You know, nanny problem, tax issue, the run of the mill that the average upper middle class person has. Or maybe he decided to avoid sullyng up his reputation by joining the Washington Cess Pool.

I suspect the reason is "fearful he was not going to get a prominent role in the health reform process."

Though Obama ran as the thoughtful, new way of governing candidate, his governing style has been pretty old school.

Health care reform isn't going to be a seminar. It's going to be a rugby scrum. The best ideas won't win. The most power will. As an outsider, he doesn't have much power. He'll get beat up--so he said, "Thanks but no thanks."

Do I smell the same Racisim towards Gupta's existence that The Professor sensed in the initial reaction to Jindal? FYI, The large number of Indian doctors in our health care system since 1980 have invested in leveraged real estate supported by the cash flow of their medical practices and done very well in it. They do not live extravagantly. They only display wealth at their childrens Medical educational expenses and their childrens weddings, which are the Show Off moment for them. Anyway, they do not see any benefit in becoming Government Workers at existence level wages while their investments over 30 years disappear all to please the New Community Communists. Helping Obama destroy them is not their first choice. That is very smart. When will the rest of us wake up from an Obama induced Hypnotic state and join them.

I suspect the reason is "fearful he was not going to get a prominent role in the health reform process."

At the very least I think that this is something that ought to be tracked. There have been several incidents, small things, that lead me to wonder if Obama can't delegate authority - doesn't trust people to do the jobs they are appointed to.

The President of the United States asks you to serve the country and you'd rather do TV and private practice so you decline the call.

The TV personality thing can be seen as public service, if it is approached as such. It's a fabulous opportunity to educate people. Private practice for a doctor/surgeon is a direct contribution to the well-being of other people. Money is good, but the feeling of personal efficacy is important, very important, to a whole lot of people.

Being asked to give up those things would seem a good choice if the trade-off were to do something with a great deal of intrinsic reward. As hokey as it sounds "making a difference" makes a difference.

It's not possible to know someone else's motivation. Sometimes you can't know it even if they tell you. But I think that the possibility that the great down-side to this appointment is a lack of assurance that it will be an appointment of responsibility and influence shouldn't be ignored.

I think you hit it. That is exactly the part that Carter played. He appointed people way beyond their abilities and then tried to do their job and his and failed at both. I can see Bambi doing this as well. He has so far done a horrible job of appointing people and they have screwed up royally at almost everything. Soon he will either have to step in and do something or just let the chips fall where they may and try to explain it away. Carter tried to step in and failed miserably. I think Bambi is going to fail also and I think he will just let the chips fall. He is not a hands on person and wouldn't know what to do even if he were. His pragmatism done went.

Enough where my deductions are limited, and where I have to calculate (but not pay) AMT. Untaxed dividends are a godsend, of course, even though it discourages me from earning more by the sweat of my brow.